


when your high's gone low

by hexburn (thestormapproaches)



Series: Catching Fire, Catching Cold | LEC Hanahaki [7]
Category: League of Legends RPF
Genre: Coping with Failure, Drinking & Talking, Fluff, Friendship, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Mention of blood, Studio Ghibli References, Watching Movies, White Anemone, coping with defeat, could be interpreted as friends or lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:00:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25443550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thestormapproaches/pseuds/hexburn
Summary: Supporting Lucas is hard, especially when they're torn apart each week so Lucas can play LFL. It's also difficult when Duncan's mind is preoccupied with the flowers that keep mysteriously appearing on his bedsheets and pillows.Weird.
Relationships: Duncan "Skeanz" Marquet & Lucas "Saken" Fayard, Duncan "Skeanz" Marquet/Lucas "Saken" Fayard
Series: Catching Fire, Catching Cold | LEC Hanahaki [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1472042
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	when your high's gone low

**Author's Note:**

> more hanahaki! and a rareship of sorts

_ If the moonlight comes to steal your smile _

_ Call me up _ **_when your high's gone low_ **

_ It will only take a little while _

_ Catching Fire like you’re Catching Cold _

From second in LFL to dead last in LEC.

Certainly, it’s not how Duncan had hoped his rookie split would go - not for him or for Lucas. Duncan is stressed from loss after loss that, though Duke hugs him like a father and makes sure he knows it isn’t his fault, he blames himself for. Lucas is stressed for the same reason, plus LFL on top of his LEC duties. Taking trains back and forth between the LFL team house and the LEC team house is certainly no way to spend a day of each week.

For that reason, their midnight chats, the ones they used to have every night after duoq and preparing for LFL together, then LEC, dwindle as the season progresses. Duncan doesn’t mind, really. He knows Lucas needs his sleep.

But Lucas’s packed schedule combined with Duncan’s shyness mean that, when Duncan’s lungs start acting up, he’s not sure where to go.

\---

After a rough night, after another two awful losses, after a brief happy interlude of board games with his team, after barely consoling himself with another rewatching of Totoro, Duncan wakes up to a soft rustling on his pillow, right next to his face. For a moment he wonders if Lucas has played a trick on him, putting confetti in his bed the way he had during their amazing LFL season after their wins. Then he opens his eyes.

A white flower with large rounded petals and a dark, speckled centre lies there, ever so gently resting against Duncan’s lips. He sits up, surprised, and peers over the side of his bed to see three more petals, all separated from their centre, which lies next to them.

Curious.

During breakfast, a disjointed affair since it’s their day off, he breaks his typical early-morning silence to ask:

“Did someone buy flowers recently?”

Everyone looks at him semi-blankly. For a second, Duncan wonders if his English is off.

But Duke seems to understand - he looks around the room curiously. Valentine’s Day was over their last LEC games, so in one sense it would be logical to buy flowers, but on the other hand it’s after Valentine’s Day, now. “No, I don’t think so,” Duke finally answers, and the other Vitality players also shake their heads. “Why do you ask?”

“Oh, n-no reason,” Duncan says, brushing it off like it’s nothing big, “I- it must have just been a neighbour’s perfume or something.”

Pretty much everyone shrugs and gets on with their breakfast, so Duncan finishes his eggs quickly. He coughs a little bit. Something tickles in his throat.

It’s probably nothing.

And even if it was something, he can just wash it down with some water, like it never happened.

The rest of breakfast is a combination of some players’ silence and other players venting about their Catan experience from the night before - the prospect of learning a game just to play it with his teammates had admittedly been a bit confusing to Duncan at first, especially trying to learn the game in pure English and not a hint of helpful French, but Duke knows what he’s doing; the games have brought them together. But playing with the entire team had meant Duncan had to forgo helping Lucas pack his backpack for returning to LFL, and the quiet, amicable peace that comes with packing together. When Lucas stumbles into the room, carrying his backpack and looking awfully tired, Duncan begins to regret his decision.

“Morning, Lucas,” Cabo teases.

“Morning, Lucas,” Lucas echoes, making their typical joke about their shared name and grabbing a few cereal bars and a banana.

Duke hands him a piece of bread with cheese as well. “Off to the train, then?” he asks while Lucas tears into the snack. Lucas nods.

Duncan watches with sad eyes as Lucas hurries out of the door with barely a wave to him, but there’s no time to waste - it’s on to soloQ for most of them, with nothing else to do on their day off.

Weeks fly by at this point. There’s nothing else to break the monotony of losing, though, as Duke always makes sure to point out to them, they’re improving! Fewer scrims are lost as time goes on, though not terribly fewer, and admittedly Duncan doesn’t know if that’s because he’s getting better or others just don’t try nearly as hard against them.

There’s also not much to act as the highlights of his days. There is anime in his free time, and soloQ when he’s working, and scrims as his times to perform the best he can, and in between there is missing Lucas and coughing up petals.

Perhaps this is the key change in his days? Each morning, he wakes up with more and more soft white petals on the floor. One day, Duncan even finds his bedside littered with them, a shower of petals comparable to a wedding aisle. He starts keeping a rubbish bin by his bedside in the hopes of making cleanup easier. It does help. At the very least, he doesn’t have to worry about the problem that lends itself so well to the dead of night, when there is nothing on his mind but Lucas and cute animated romances and the flowers slowly clogging his lungs.

They’re clogging his lungs.

At first he thinks it’s just a casual cough. A cold, perhaps. Not more flowers. So he doesn’t suppress it when he first starts to cough in scrims, just weak little coughs as things tickle the back of his throat. Sometimes he coughs a little harder. After a few days, it gets bad enough that Cabo often pats his back when they’re not on-stage and barred from comforting each other.

But he never coughs anything up.

Duncan supposes he should be thankful for that, that whatever is wrong with him at least doesn’t hurt the team more than he alone already is, that his flowers don’t disrupt practise or make Duke worry or put even more mental strain on Lucas. They even manage to win a game! It’s the best feeling in the world.

He’d almost forgotten what it felt like.

He’d nearly forgotten how good it felt to win. It’s appalling. He’d nearly let all the memories of victory celebrations slip away, those times with Lucas sitting next to him on his bed, drinking whatever cheap alcohol they had lying around the gaming house, watching a movie together and laughing at all the best parts. Momentarily, Duncan wonders if Lucas still wants to do that after this victory. The poor midlaner has to head off to LFL again, tomorrow, anyway.

To Duncan’s surprise, Lucas says yes, and they ‘steal’ two bottles of beer from Cabo’s stash in the fridge as their spoils of the day’s war. Old CDs bring them part of their entertainment for the night - Ponyo - and Lucas brings the rest, with silly quips and inside jokes. Steelback pokes his head in the door at some point, but he quickly decides his lack of interest and wanders off. No matter! They’ve always enjoyed it best when it’s just them. Lucas nudges Duncan’s side and says so with such a bright grin that Duncan can’t help but laugh, as he does so often around Lucas.

Something tickles in Duncan’s throat.

He ignores it and takes another sip of his beer. It’s not great, but it will do to wash the annoyance down.

The rest of the night fades in a happy, giggly, slightly alcoholic haze. When he wakes up, he’s not leaning over to the side of the bed, the way he usually makes sure to fall asleep for minimal hassle in the cleanup. Instead, he’s positioned with his head squarely in the middle of his pillow - Lucas must have tucked him in. His throat tickles again at the thought, but there’s no time to think about the cough he’s coming down with. There’s a mound of petals and flowers next to his pillow, anyway, to take care of, and without further ado he scoops them up and drops them off into the rubbish bin at the bedside. The other petals give him pause, though. Duncan fears, but does not anticipate, the worst, as he picks up the red-tinged petals and drops them in the rubbish bin as well.

He turns back to the last few pale petals and- ah. He was right.

It was, indeed, blood.

He hastily asks Duke for help with what surely must have been a middle-of-the-night nosebleed.

Another week, another two losses. It’s sad, but Duncan doesn’t really expect anything more, and he knows by the comforting hugs Duke gives them after games that he’s not expecting more, either. At least soon the split will be over and Duncan will get to try anew. They’re basically already out of playoffs, anyway.

Lucas is still bouncing between leagues, poor boy, and he’ll have to leave for LFL in the morning. He’s probably asleep right now. That’s the only reason Duncan doesn’t run to him for a hug.

But then his phone hums.

_ come to my room?  _ says the text Duncan has just received, the text from Lucas that makes Duncan’s heart soar.

He has never been one to turn Lucas down.  _ Yeah, what’s up? _ he answers as he rolls out of bed, dragging his thinner blanket with him down the hall to Lucas’s room.

_ it’s important. _

Well, then. “I’m here,” Duncan says softly after Lucas opens the door to his knocking.

Wordlessly, Lucas lets him by, and Duncan settles onto the bed, setting his pillow next to Lucas’s with the same comfortable familiarity they’ve had for so long and drawing his knees up to his chest so Lucas can squeeze by and cuddle up with his blankets. Duncan doesn’t need words to see Lucas is upset.

“So…” he begins, unsure of what to say. “You said it was important?”

“I’m being moved to the LFL team for the rest of the split.”

Duncan can’t do anything but stare at Lucas blankly.

“I guess… I guess they want me to focus.”

“Oh,” says Duncan dumbly at last.

Lucas’s warm arms wrap him in a hug, then, cradling him close and shielding him against the sadness and the pressure of the outside world and their own little ever-changing team. “I’m sorry I couldn’t carry us a little bit further,” he whispers, his voice creaky like he wants to cry.

“No, no- don’t be sorry,” Duncan answers in equally hushed tones. “You did great. We could have done better, sure. But we’ll get there, and it’s not your fault we didn’t get there this time.” There’s a tickling in his throat, but Duncan ignores it; it isn’t important right now. “You did so well. You played twice the games we did, you know.”

“Yeah, but- I don’t know. I wish I could have done more for you.”

“I know,” Duncan murmurs. “But I’m grateful for what you’ve done, and you don’t need to do more. Take a break for a little while, okay? Focus on LFL instead of everything else.”

“I will,” Lucas answers with a smile. “Don’t worry about me.”

“You might as well tell my heart to stop beating,” says Duncan with a wry smile. “I always worry about you.”

“And I worry for you, too. I love you.”

“I love you too,” Duncan says with a soft smile. “Go-” he coughs, “go win some games-” another hacking cough- “o-oka-” and a final cough. Something flies from his throat, but Duncan closes his lips quickly, to keep it contained and spit it into the tissue Lucas wordlessly hands him.

It’s a small white rock-

No.

A pearl?

And flower petals?

“Wha-”

“You idiot-” Lucas begins, but his laughter cuts him off, and it’s so infectious, Duncan can’t help but start laughing too.

“What?” he whines, drawing out the word with confusion and giggles and still so much bubbly happiness.

“That’s a hanahaki pearl!” Lucas says. “You had hanahaki and never knew it?”

“What’s hanahaki?” Duncan asks with a silly giggle, unable to stop his happiness from resurfacing.

“It’s this disease you get, sometimes, if you love someone,” Lucas explains gently, his warmth still resting against Duncan’s side as he carefully takes the tissue-wrapped pearl and wipes it clean. “It grows in your lungs,” he says, “and it makes your heart ache, but everyone knows it because you cough up flowers if you have it.”

“Oh.” So that’s where all the flowers came from, Duncan realises with a giddy laugh. “That would explain a lot.” The heaviness in his chest, the kind that must have come from flowers and blood, is now gone, and he feels so light, so happy, so full of joy at Lucas’s side in blankets as light and airy as the petals Duncan used to spit up.

“You’re so silly,” Lucas says with a smile, and Duncan just keeps laughing.

“You’re sillier,” he answers.

They nudge their elbows against each other and rest their heads cheek to cheek. Duncan lets a happy sigh fall from his lips, and Lucas answers it with his own sigh and a grin.

“Wanna watch Totoro?” he suggests with another nudge. 

And what else could Duncan say to that?

“Yes, of course!”

**Author's Note:**

> after this, i'm fairly certain the hanahaki series will not be fully complete with a fic for each team - the reason is that, looking at misfits, i have no fucking clue what ship to even try to write (don't worry about suggesting pairings, i've looked at them and i just cant think of any hanahaki ideas, i'm sorry ;-;).  
> might write a mad lions one later tho!
> 
> i hope you enjoyed this sort of random but hopefully cute fic!


End file.
